Almanac - Thursday 5/20/21

Today is Thursday, the 20th of May, 2021
It is the 140th day of the year
225 days remain until the end of the year.
31 days until summer begins
The sun rose at 5:55 am
and sunset will be at 8:19 pm.
We will have 14 hours and 24 minutes of daylight.
The solar transit was at 1:07 pm.
The first low tide was at 12:24 am
The first high tide will be at 5:23 am
The next low tide at 12:17 pm.
and the final high tide at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach will be at 7:26 pm.
Today is…
Be a Millionaire Day
Brown Bag It Thursday
Eliza Doolittle Day
Flower Day
Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Hummus Day
International Clinical Trials Day
International Red Sneakers Day
National Apéritif Day
National Notebook Day
National Quiche Lorraine Day
National Rescue Dog Day
Pick Strawberries Day
Weights and Measures Day
World Autoimmune Arthritis Day
World Bee Day
Today is also…Day of Remembrance in Cambodia
Emancipation Day in Florida
European Maritime Day
Independence Restoration Day, celebrates the independence of East Timor from Indonesia in 2002.
Josephine Baker Day with the NAACP
National Awakening Day and Indonesian Doctor Day in Indonesia
National Day in Cameroon
World Bee Day
World Metrology Day
On this day in history…
1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.
1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe
1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, opening 84 million acres of public land to settlers
1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1875 – Signing of the Metre Convention by 17 nations leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.
1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.
1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.
1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes the country's first President.
1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
1949 – In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
1980 – In a referendum in Quebec, the population rejects, by 60% of the vote, a government proposal to move towards independence from Canada.
1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.
1985 – Radio Martí, part of the Voice of America service, begins broadcasting to Cuba.
1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
1996 – Civil rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.
2019 – The International System of Units (SI): The base units are redefined, making the international prototype of the kilogram obsolete.
…and if today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share this special day with…
1799 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright (d. 1850)
1806 – John Stuart Mill, English economist, civil servant, and philosopher (d. 1873)
1818 – William Fargo, American businessman and politician, co-founded Wells Fargo and American Express (d. 1881)
1882 – Sigrid Undset, Danish-Norwegian novelist, essayist, and translator, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1949)
1908 – James Stewart, American actor (d. 1997)
1915 – Moshe Dayan, Israeli general and politician, 5th Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1981)
1919 – George Gobel, American comedian (d. 1991)
1940 – Sadaharu Oh, Japanese-Taiwanese baseball player and manager
1944 – Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
1946 – Cher, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1949 – Dave Thomas, Canadian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1958 – Ron Reagan, American journalist and radio host
1966 – Dan Abrams, American journalist and author
1972 – Busta Rhymes, American rapper, producer, and actor